Church Uses Devil To Rebrand Prayer Channel

A campaign debuting Wednesday will use the devil to pitch the rebranding of a New York religous cable service, The Prayer Channel, into NET (New Evangelism Television).

According to a spokesman for LA-based agency Cesario Migliozzi, which is handling the rebranding campaign, TV and radio spots featuring the devil as an "anti-spokesperson" will begin running Dec. 3 and will include MySpace and Facebook pages, a web site www.StopGoodTV.com and NYC bus advertising (the channel is on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision). The spots feature a "vertically challenged" devil trying to warn viewers off the channel.NET, which is affiliated with the Catholic Archdioses of Brooklyn, programs religious news, lifestyle, entertainment, and kids programming 24/7 to approximately 850,000.

"The Church has used the good vs. evil conflict to promote religion for two centuries,” he added. “In our campaign, the Devil urges viewers to avoid good TV and stick with ‘crappy, pointless, bad television,’ said Ad Agency parnter Michael Migliozzi in announcing the new campaign. "There is even an online petition fronted by the Devil, in which viewers pledge not to tune into NET."

The Archdiocese's TV arm approved the campaign, according to agency spokesman Ted Faraone.